


Motel TV

by lemonypond



Series: FitzSimmons watches Doctor Who [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01, Spoilers for The Office Casino Night, Television Watching, spoilers for Doctor Who Doomsday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonypond/pseuds/lemonypond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FitzSimmons watch tv in the motel. First the iconic The Office episode "Casino Night" followed by the Doctor Who episode "Doomsday". </p><p>The night before Ragtag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motel TV

**Author's Note:**

> I tragically despite my best efforts own nothing. Spoilers for The Office 2.22 Casino Night and Doctor Who 2.13 Doomsday.

The team occupied three rooms in the corner of the motel facing the pool. Fitz and Simmons shared one of the rooms, just as they had countless times since they met.  Outside the window the neon sign hummed quietly with electricity, and the curtains wafted gently above the barely functioning air conditioner.  Fitz, in pajama pants and a plain green t-shirt, sat on the bed he claimed as his. He had his back against the headboard, shaking his leg in agitation as he flipped through the Deathlok file for the fifth time that night. 

“Go ahead and fix it; you know you want to, you’ve been glaring at it since we checked in last week,” Simmons said as she exited the bathroom, toweling her hair. “If you don’t you know you won’t be able to concentrate on anything else.” Simmons had always been totally at ease in front of Fitz, sometimes to Fitz’s horror. Over the years she still laughed to herself when he got flummoxed. “Stop being a fish, Fitz, and close your mouth; you’ve seen me a robe literally hundreds of times.” 

“Wha- I- you- I know that Jemma,” he said, trying not to stare as she flipped her head over to wrap the towel around her head. “You just startled me is all.” He got up from his bed and grabbed the small tool kit from his bag and then sat down on the floor in front of the ac unit. He knew exactly what was wrong with it and could fix it in under two minutes, but he took his time so that he wouldn’t have to look at his best friend as she got ready for bed; it had begun to be more and more distracting to him with every passing day. 

“I’m going to turn the tv on, is that ok?” she called from the bathroom where she was flossing her teeth. 

“Yeah. Yeah that’s fine. We could use the distraction, really,” he called back. It was true; with all the work they had been doing, trying to track down Ward and Garrett they were starting to lose their minds.  He was starting to lose his mind. Fitz was still in denial about Ward. He knew the facts, they were laid out in front of him, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that the man he thought was his friend was in fact a murderous traitor. He could also use some distracting from his thoughts about Jemma; they were occupying his mind with increasing frequency. 

“OW! Son of a-“ he yelped, yanking his hand back. Simmons came running from the bathroom, her robe replaced with pajama shorts and a Doctor Who tee that he had given her a few birthdays ago. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, kneeling down beside him and grabbing his hand. 

“I’m _fine_ Jemma, really. Just a shock; wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing,” he answered, letting her rub and flip his hand gently between hers, as she inspected it with care. “But it should work better now.” 

“No permanent damage it seems,” she said with a smile, still cradling his hand. “You’ve seemed distracted a lot lately…is there something on your mind, I mean, other than the whole ‘Ward is Hydra’ thing?” 

She saw right through him; she always did. “No,” he said, not quite meeting her gaze; instead watching her rub her thumb over the back of his hand.  “Did you find something to watch?” 

With a warm smile she let go of his hand and stood up. “Well, there’s The Office- the American one, obviously. You like that one right? We used to catch it sometimes at the Academy.” 

He packed away his tools and she offered her hand to help him up. He didn’t even have to look; he knew it was going to be there.  “No. Yeah. Yeah. That’d be great, we could use a good laugh.” 

Simmons opened her mouth to say something. 

“Hey-one that isn’t at my expense Simmons.  I didn’t know the drapes would catch fire,” he interrupted her, a smile forming on his lips mirroring hers. 

“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed. “I’m going to go dry my hair. Remote’s on your bed.” She then walked into the bathroom and shut the door; the Leo Fitz enhanced hair dryer was quite loud, but very efficient. 

“Which one is on? Oh-oh never mind,” he said, realizing she’d shut the door and couldn’t hear him. He sat his tool kit next to his neatly folded stack of clothes with the tags still on them. Coulson had taken the team to buy a few new sets of clothes since everything they owned was still on the Bus. There was a commercial for a local truck dealership on the tv so he settled himself back onto his lumpy motel bed and grabbed the remote. 

 _“I won the 2002 $2,500 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven-Draw Tournament at the World Series of Poker in Vegas. So, yeah... I'm pretty good at poker._ ”The show came back from the break. 

Oh cool, this is a great episode, he thought to himself. He grabbed the bottle of water from the nightstand and took a sip. From the bathroom he heard the blow dryer and some indecipherable singing. He couldn’t help but laugh. Even through all of this, she still had that spirit that kept him going. He muted the sound so that he could try to hear her a little better. 

It didn’t take long for the blow dryer to stop, thanks to his tinkering, and a few minutes later he unmuted the sound so that she wouldn’t notice that he was listening. She was still singing, but with the door still closed he couldn’t hear the words clearly, just the timbre of her voice. 

“…. _hey can I talk to you about something?”_  The words came from the wimpy speakers of the tv.  

“Oh,” Fitz said, glancing towards the bathroom door. She was still singing. Now he remembered how this episode ended. 

 _“….I was just um…I’m in love with you._ ” The character of Jim Halpert said in a dark parking lot. 

Fitz was still staring at the door, almost through the door if his eyes would allow it; his mouth suddenly dry. All the things that he’d been thinking since Jemma jumped out of the plane, building slowly over the last few months, a fictitious television character was saying this very moment. He turned back towards the tv. 

“ _I’m really sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but I needed you to…hear it. Probably not good timing I know that, I just-“_

From the bathroom he heard the water turn on; she was brushing her teeth. She had no idea what he was thinking. Did she? They were always so in sync. 

“ _What are you doing? What do you expect me to say to that_?” Pam Beesly answered back, her face almost paralyzed from the revelation that her best friend in the entire world just said he loved her. Fitz watched the scene with rapt attention. 

“ _I just needed you to know. Once_.” Halpert was really laying it all out on the line. Fitz wished he had the courage to do that-to tell Jemma how much she meant to him. 

“ _Well I uh…I..I.can’t. You have no idea….what your friendship means to me.”_ The reaction Fitz feared the most. He swallowed hard. He’d never leave the team like Jim though, not unless she left.

Just then the bathroom door opened and out walked his best friend. A woman so married to science that she couldn’t see Fitz for anything other than a lab partner, he thought to himself.  He was too, until they joined Coulson’s flying circus. 

“What’d I miss? Oh. Oh… this is such a good episode,” Jemma said, sitting down next to him on the bed. “Scoot over.” 

“ _Don’t do that. C’mon. I don’t wanna do that. I want to be more than that_.” Jim Halpert said from the tv, a single tear faling from his face. Fitz looked at Simmons with an uneasy half smile, one that he’d been using more and more frequently lately. 

“Yeah, it is,” he said looking up at her as she took her place beside him, moving three inches to his left.  She wrapped her arm under his and dropped her head on his shoulder. Fitz’s half, uneasy smile melted into a fully formed, genuine one. 

“I mean the way that Jim just laid everything out there on the line, taking that chance? It’s amazing,” she said. “I mean if he hadn’t taken that chance, Pam would’ve married that dolt and had a miserable life. She’s obviously in love with him and she knows it but she’s just so complacent in life to do anything.” 

Fitz tilted his head so that his zygomatic arch rested on the crown of her head. His eyebrows furrowed as he said, “You really think so?” 

“Obviously. Look at that Fitz, she’s one hundred percent kissing him back right there. And also Fitz, we watched the third series! Do you not remember that?” she turned her head to look at him quizzically. 

“Oh,” he began, a wave of relief and realization washing over his face. “Yeah. Guess I forgot.” 

Simmons grabbed the remote from across Fitz’s lap and pushed the guide button. “Oh look Fitz, the motel has cable! Let’s watch BBCAmerica, looks like they’re playing a Doctor Who marathon.” 

“Really?” he asked; his head perking up instantly, trying to pretend he wasn’t smelling her hair and enjoying her closeness. “Well change the channel Simmons! C’mon then!” 

Simmons flipped the channel, and there they found David Tennant’s tenth doctor wearing 3-D spectacles. Simmons sat up next to Fitz equal in height. 

“Hey!” they both said excitedly. Then realizing what episode it was they said “hey” again much more somberly. 

“Fitz?” 

“Yeah Jemma?” he replied, turning his head a few degrees, not quite looking at her, but not looking at the tv either. 

“If…if we ever end up like…Rose and Ten…separated into different worlds…” 

Fitz wrinkled his face in confusion. She noticed and cut him off before he could interrupt her. 

“Fitz, I know…I know…but we work in a world where something like that could actually happen. The Bifrost really exists. There are other worlds. If we ever got separated I…I don’t know what I would do. I wouldn’t let you fly down that hallway into a parallel universe is what I’m trying to say.” 

His face suddenly felt like it was on fire. “I wouldn’t let you either”, he answered, his heart catching in his throat. “Jemma…I..” 

“Yeah Fitz?” she asked, then yawned rather loudly. 

He paused, looking at the tv in front of them. They so rarely got these quiet moments together anymore. But he wasn’t Jim Halpert; he was Leo Fitz. He wasn’t good at declarations. “There’s nothing that would ever keep us apart. I’d rip the fabric of time and space for you, I promise you that. There’s always a way when it’s you and me.” He bumped her shoulder gently. 

She smiled brightly and innocently kissed his cheek. “Likewise,” she replied after. The warmth lingered on his face, as did his smile. They watched the rest of _Doomsday_ together. Jemma slowly curling in closer under Fitz's arm until by the end of the episode she was sobbing onto his chest and he was quietly crying into her hair. 

“That…episode…” she began, wiping her eyes and trying to inhale the snot away. 

“I know,” he replied, letting his hand rest on her back, his fingers smoothing her hair. “But it’s good to cry like that sometimes, I think.” 

“Oh it is Fitz, it is…” she sat up and looked at him, her eyes looking right into his. “Is…is it ok if I just stay over in your bed with you tonight? I’m always a wreck after _Doomsday.”_

 _“_ You’re already here and you know I am too,” he said, reaching for the lamp, grinning to himself. “Remember the first time we watched it? You cried for three days just thinking about it.” 

Jemma smirked and quickly fired back, “You cried for four.” 

“You can’t prove that.” 

“Want me to prove that I _can_ prove that?” 

“Go to sleep Jemma. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.” 

“You too.”

“Goodnight-“ “Sleep well-“ they whispered to each other. Jemma once again rested her head on his chest, her hand resting directly over his heart, the one that beat only for her, in perfect rhythm with hers. She sighed deeply, taking comfort in its unfailing rhythm. Fitz placed his arm around her shoulder, his hand resting nervously on her hip, before exhaling, letting the tension out of his mind and his body.  Even if he never told her, she knew. And he knew. And they were whatever they were. And it was perfect.


End file.
